Regional Dynamics of the Indonesian Revolution:
Unity From Diversity

Audrey Kahin (editor)

Studies of the Indonesian Revolution mostly focus on the centre, on the
core of the nascent Republic and its leaders, or perhaps on one region.
Regional Dynamics of the Indonesian Revolution presents studies of
eight different regions: the Tiga Daerah (north-west Central Java),
Banten, Aceh, East Sumatra, West Sumatra, Jakarta, South Sulawesi,
and Ambon. The chapters are written by specialists, but they take a
similar enough approach to make comparisons easy; Kahin also contributes
an introduction and a comparative overview. Overall, the volume does an
excellent job capturing the complexities of events and causal factors and
their variation between and within regions, as well as their historical
connections to the past and the future.

In the Tiga Daerah and Banten, the power vacuum following the Japanese
surrender led to social revolution, with the newly proclaimed Republic
unable to exert control and its appointed officials swept aside or
sidelined. But the fragile alliance between Muslim teachers from
the ulama, armed youth groups, leftist revolutionaries, and other
participants soon broke down, leading to the reestablishment of central
authority. In Aceh radical youth and the ulama united to displace
traditional leaders and to keep the province almost totally free from the
Dutch. Though Aceh was loyal to the Republic, it was almost completely
autonomous as a result of its distance — and conflict came soon after
independence, in 1953.

East Sumatra and West Sumatra were battlegrounds between the Republic
and the Dutch. In East Sumatra ethnic divisions and competing warlords
hampered nationalist unity; the period saw the destruction of the
old elite and a restructuring of society, leaving the military as the
main governing institution. West Sumatra saw one coup attempt, but
otherwise stayed unified behind the Republican administration, helped
by the immediacy of the Dutch enemy and the prominence of Minangkabau
in the central leadership; as in Aceh, however, conflict appeared soon
after independence.

In Jakarta, Sulawesi, and Ambon, British and Australian troops quickly
took over from the Japanese and the Dutch soon took control. Jakarta,
though central to the Republic symbolically and active early, saw little
nationalist action while under occupation — and the more radical elements
were seen as a threat. Murderous repression in the countryside and
co-option of elites in Makassar kept South Sulawesi firmly under Dutch
control: most nationalists either worked within the system, helping to
discredit Dutch federalism from within (South Sulawesi was a key element
in the Dutch-sponsored East Indonesian State), or joined the struggle
in Java. And in Ambon there was a counter-revolution in 1950 by groups
wanting to avoid incorporation into the Republic.